WUNRN
SAUDI ARABIA - EXECUTION OF WOMAN
CONVICTED OF "SORCERY"
December 13, 2011 - SAUDI authorities have executed, by beheading, a woman convicted of practicing magic and sorcery.
The Saudi Interior Ministry says in a statement the execution took place on Monday, but gave no details on the woman's crime.
The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 per session.
The paper said a female investigator followed up, and the woman was arrested in April, 2009, and later convicted in a Saudi court.
It did not give the woman's name, but said she was in her 60s.
The beheading took to 73 the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year.
In September, Amnesty International called on the Muslim kingdom where 140 people were on death row to establish an "immediate moratorium on executions."
The rights group said Saudi Arabia was one of a minority of states which voted against a UN General Assembly resolution last December calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
Amnesty says Saudi Arabia executed 27 convicts in 2010, compared to 67 executions announced the year before.